


the world doesn't fall in one day

by necromantrix



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-14 19:52:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15396159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/necromantrix/pseuds/necromantrix
Summary: or: Radiant Garden is a beautiful place, safe and full of light—until it’s not.





	the world doesn't fall in one day

It starts with a stranger to all but one, but even then he seems _familiar_ to many. He’s a kind young man with no memory to speak of, and yet he’s the catalyst of all the things to come. His name is Xehanort.

He’s taken on as another apprentice, and soon the whispers begin. They start as suggestions, as ideas, that Ansem rejects, but conversations with the others garner their support. Their leader acquiesces to their desires, and slowly things are set in motion.

\---

The experiments start off harmless—they’re nothing more than glimpses into the differences between the light and the dark.

But that knowledge leads to more questions, and those questions lead to answers that only lead to more questions. Soon what they have at their disposal isn’t enough. Ansem won’t give any more to the men, though, and so a new plan is enacted: use the child to gain favors from Ansem. As much as he obviously isn’t the main father-figure in Ienzo’s life, he has no backbone when the boy makes requests.

And so the basement laboratory is constructed. It’s quick, and it’s efficient, and Ansem turns a blind eye towards the things that may happen there.

For a time.

\---

Soon he can keep silent no longer. He’s afraid, and he demands that they cease their activities. Xehanort challenges him, and the others back him up. Why stop now when they’ve learned so much?

Wanted posters are beginning to litter their beautiful world. There is darkness injected into veins, forced into hearts.

And there are deaths. Accidental, as results of these experiments, but deaths.

And Ansem is calling for a halt while they all know there is no way to halt these things now. Not when the Emblem Heartless have been created and are being examined. They need more. They always need more.

And so Ansem the Wise, leader of Radiant Garden, is banished with no fanfare. It’s to the Realm of Darkness.

A quiet falls over the castle and a shadow falls across the world.

\---

It’s nothing but exponential growth from there.

The basement has many levels, and the original apprentices don’t venture down into its depths. Xehanort does. The wanted posters only grow in number. There are no more sunny days. Time drags on.

Adults die, but they aren’t the only ones who go missing. Those within the castle can’t leave without facing the wrath of those outside. They don’t know. No one knows anything.

A girl pure of heart. Some boys who stick their noses where they don’t belong. Other kids, those unimportant and long forgotten shortly after. Children who become victims of this relentless research, hidden from the eyes of those who would protest. (But oh, how the redheaded boy tries to fight to protect the small girl when he sees her and remembers her sticking a flower in his best friend's hair; he fails, and his punishment will be severe. She won’t remember.)

\---

The dark is deep and dark and painful. It’s not the comfortable darkness of night; it’s thick and suffocating and deep. The children stop fearing it even as they learn what it feels like. They learn it well.

\---

The chaos outside only grows.

This isn’t how things should go, and suspicions take root. Perhaps their trust in Xehanort was unfounded. Without Ansem around, it feels as though the last vestiges of hope have fled this world.

Finding out about the experiments on the children—children, not adults—is an accident, one that for a time will feel unfortunate. It’s Even who discovers this bitter truth, and he decides to put an end to it then and there. He picks Ienzo up—the boy doesn't protest, for he’s been able to sense this growing darkness and danger, even if he can’t work out what exactly it means yet—with no plans to let him go. He won’t let go of this child when _other_ children are being subjected to the things they are.

“This has gone far enough,” he tells Xehanort, the other apprentices there with him to back him up. “We never agreed to th—”

He doesn’t get to finish the sentence when a Keyblade materializes before him, pointed to his chest.

“Yes, it has,” Xehanort says, and Even turns his body to shield Ienzo from what’s coming.

Not that it matters in the end; they all die here, including the one who shows up late to the massacre and has the nerve to challenge the one at fault, and then the one at fault himself. Two of the most willful boys follow. (More do, but their hearts aren’t strong enough to matter.)

\---

The world falls into darkness.

It’s quiet, and the people of the town never see it coming. They die or they scatter, many missing their spouses or siblings or children.

The eight who die and reawaken in the castle take new names, and while there is no trust between them, there is something about this new non-existence that binds them—they are, after all, all they have, and they alone bear the guilt for the ruin around them.

**Author's Note:**

> henlo i love the rg crew and here is my emo hours fic for them
> 
> i listened to the beekeeper by dessa the whole time i wrote this
> 
> i would lay down my life for even
> 
> thanks to my discord peeps for enabling and supporting me ily


End file.
